


Ways to Go

by doublejoint



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22341796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: “Rose doesn’t want a replacement, Poe. But she needs a friend."
Relationships: Poe Dameron & Rose Tico
Comments: 9
Kudos: 11
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Ways to Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Melody_Jade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melody_Jade/gifts).



> I kinda took this section of your prompt: "I'll love to see something like a big brother & little sister interaction here. Especially if Poe is friends with Paige and feels protective of Rose as a result!" and ran with it lol. 
> 
> I'm pretty fuzzy with the new EU so this may or may not be compliant FWIW. Poe's back to the Commander position here, and they're still on the Falcon.
> 
> Enjoy! <3

Poe doesn’t believe in ghosts. They’re a Jedi thing anyway, if they do exist; someone like Paige would never be able to appear in front of someone like him. But, if there was anyone who could storm back from beyond the grave through sheer force of will and punch Poe in the jaw for not taking care of her sister, it’s Paige--just thinking about it makes Poe’s mouth ache.

This battle isn’t his fault, maybe, but it is his fault that Paige had died, that they hadn’t pulled out, that so many of them had been picked off on the way down to Crait, that Rose had had to fight despite her lack of training and readiness. (But are any of them ever ready for it?) And now she's lying burnt and bloody, healing but still asleep, and if Paige were here she'd have tried to take on half the First Order after she was done with Poe twice over.

There's not much room to sit by her, but Poe squeezes himself into the narrow space between her and a crate and sits down. His back protests against the position, and the floor's too hard for his ass, but the least he can do for both Rose and Paige is to stay here until Rose wakes up. (And wait for the next comm from Black Squadron.)

* * *

A sharp pain in the back of his head, as if he’s been struck, rouses Poe from his half-slumber; he jerks forward and nearly smashes his forehead on the crate.

“Ow.”

“Poe?”

Rose squints and leans forward; her dangling foot is almost definitely what had hit him.

“I’m so sorry; are you okay?”

“Never better,” says Poe.

The spot where Rose had kicked him is tender to the touch, and now that he’s got more of his wits about him he can’t hide from the soreness and straining in his screaming muscles. The floor is a shitty place to sleep, especially not lying down. 

“How are you? Are you okay to get up?”

“I feel fine,” says Rose. “What happened? Where are we? Where’s Finn?”

The only other beings in this part of the  _ Falcon _ are asleep, but they’re probably too tired to let Poe and Rose wake them up.

“They opened us up, and then...Luke Skywalker showed up. He went out there and took Kylo Ren on alone to buy us some time. Rey landed the  _ Falcon  _ and we all got on board; we got out through the back of the cave. Finn’s...I don’t know. Sleeping, or somewhere else on the ship. But he’s okay.”

“Good,” says Rose. “Good.”

“Can I get you anything?” Poe says.

“No. I’ll be okay,” says Rose, giving Poe a thin smile, that clearly says he needs to back off.

She hops down and adjusts her jumpsuit before heading off. Does she know where anything on this ship is? Poe doesn’t really, and his guidance is unwelcome anyway.

Is Rose still mad at him? Is he being annoying? What would Paige do? She and Rose had never seemed to fight about anything major, just the normal tiffs of being cramped into the same small military base, and nitpicks about habits that only close family members can dare to poke at. 

General Organa is holed up in the cockpit, but she’s not too busy to at least let Poe in. She’s got a few datapads spread out around her, though; Poe is well aware that there are much more important and pressing things at the moment than his desire to make amends (it’s important, for his own peace of mind and what he owes to Paige, but he owes it to her more to win this fight, not least so that there still is a Rose to make it up to, and still a him to do it). 

He waves his hands at the datapad. “Can this stuff wait?”

The general sighs. “Unfortunately, it can. I’m still hoping for a response.”

Shit. “We’re still cleared for landing and refueling somewhere?”

She nods. The change in the angle highlights the bags under her eyes--has she slept? Poe complains internally about his own discomfort and the general is twice his age and has twice the burden.

“Need a nap?”

“Is that a polite way of saying I look like shit?”

“Yes, General.”

“Thank you, Commander. Though I assume that’s not all you’re here for?”

She probably knows already because of that Force stuff, but she’s still making him say it out loud.

“How can I help Rose?”

“You’re assuming I know? Ask her.”

Poe drags a hand down his face. “Yeah, that’ll go great. I killed your sister and I want to make it up to you and try to do what she would have done and I’m going to make you tell me exactly what you need.”

General Organa looks back at him, clearly unimpressed.

Poe stares back at her.

“Rose doesn’t want a replacement, Poe. But she needs a friend. Do you know how many people have given me any sort of condolence about my brother? I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, but I’m sure fewer people have said anything to Rose. You knew Paige.”

She doesn’t have to spell it out for him further. “Right. General. And I’m sorry about Luke. Do you need—?”

(Luke had been Poe’s mother’s friend, like Poe's very distant uncle more than anything else; he doesn’t have much in the way of memories to share but what he does have are all positive.)

“I’ll let you know if I do.”

“Right,” says Poe.

He finds Rose repairing a few broken blasters that look like they’d been rusting in a storage crate for decades. Maybe they had been, and that junk dealer Rey had stolen it from hadn’t found where they’d been hidden.

“Need a hand?”

“Sure,” says Rose.

Poe sinks into a crouch beside her and grabs from the top of the pile. The blaster looks pretty close to Republic military standard; maybe it’s an older model of the kind Poe had used. 

“Remember to switch on the safety,” says Rose.

She’s all business when she’s in her element, when she’s not thinking about being self-conscious. Paige was that way too a little bit, head down and unfazed by anything in the cockpit but goofy and gregarious out of it. Poe double-checks the safety; it’s already on. The muzzle’s rusty, just needs to be flaked off and repainted; otherwise this one looks okay.

“I’m sorry about Paige,” Poe says, and saying that almost makes him feel worse.

Rose looks a little startled. “I...I’m sorry too. You were friends.”

Poe wants to say something stupid, like ask if Paige talked about him, but that’s making this about him and not about Paige, and it might not go over too well given the circumstances anyway. He claps Rose on the shoulder.

“You were sisters.”

“I...yeah,” says Rose, and she takes a shaky breath. 

“Do you want to talk about her?”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Or anytime.”

Rose bites her lip and looks back to the blaster in her lap before she tightens the screw holding the barrel in place.

“Now is good.” She puts the blaster aside.

Poe swallows. Does she want him to say something? Does she have something to say? Rose’s gaze darts from him to the blaster in his hands to the wall behind him to the crate.

“It feels...weird,” Rose says, finally. “I knew I depended on her for a lot, but now...I’m mad. At myself for being so lonely without her, and I’m worried she’d be disappointed or worried about me. And I’m mad that this happened, and I’m mad at the First Order for doing this to our system in the first place. And a little bit at her and then I feel guilty because I might not be as mad if I didn’t need her so much?”

She bites her lip and wipes her eye with the back of one hand; Poe reaches into his pocket for an old kerchief he’d meant to have around for sweat (but it’ll work just as well here). 

“Thanks,” she says.

“I think you’re doing pretty good,” says Poe. “Paige wouldn’t be upset with you. She might be mad at the rest of us for not taking care of you.”

Rose flushes. “I’m not--I shouldn’t need—”

“Everyone needs to be taken care of sometimes.”

“This is war.”

“All the more reason. There’s so few of us left that we could be an extended family, you know?”

Rose gives a weak smile. 

“You know, Paige always talked about you a lot. Kind of made me wish I had a sibling.”

“Really?” 

Poe nods.

That seems to make a little of the tension in Rose’s shoulders vanish. Poe begins to take the rust off the blaster in his hands, and Rose picks up another from the pile. They’ve got a ways to go.


End file.
